Chapter Seven Wild Rose

The metal 📦  box

Chapter Seven – The Watcher

Rose was still reeling from the news of Aunt Edith’s secret baby. Edmund. A name buried for decades, now surfacing like a ripple on still water.

But what haunted her wasn’t just the story. It was him. Why was he appearing to her? Like some unfinished business that refused to rest.

The days were getting cooler now that it was mid-September. The leaves had begun to shift into their golden, rusted hues. Bird-pecked apples lay scattered across the orchard floor, sweet and rotting. The grass felt like velvet, but with sharp, bristling edges. Mist draped low over the mountains like a damp patchwork quilt in faded greens and greys.

She walked the path behind the farmhouse — one she’d known since girlhood — but something today felt off. The air felt thick. As though it were holding its breath.

Pushing the unease aside, Rose reminded herself she needed provisions. Namely: wine. She didn’t want to drive into town after dark, so she left earlier than usual, taking the winding thirty-minute road into the valley.

By the time she pulled into the Waitrose car park, the street lamps were flickering on. The evening had grown cool. People hurried past with hunched shoulders and bags clutched tight, eager to get home. Car doors slammed. Petrol pumps beeped. There was nothing particularly eerie about it — and yet, Rose couldn’t shake the feeling.

She stepped out of her car and zipped up her coat, shivering slightly.

Then she saw him.

Edmund.

Right in front of her. Pale, still, and watching. His expression had changed — no soft grin this time. His eyes were urgent, his hand raised. Beckoning.

He pointed to the far side of the road. To an alley.

Rose’s breath hitched. Her instincts screamed to turn around. But something deeper — some marrow-deep pull — made her cross the road.

The alley swallowed her quickly. Streetlights barely reached its cracked pavement. The air smelled of damp stone and faint rot. At the far end, Edmund stood in silhouette, pointing toward a half-hidden house behind a collapsed fence and overgrown hedge.

It looked long abandoned. Empty. Crumbling. Forgotten.

Rose raised her phone and flicked on the flashlight. The beam cut through the dark, catching broken windows and ivy-wrapped gutters. The gate hung on one hinge. The garden was a jungle of nettles, wrappers, and rusted cans.

She stepped over a fallen brick wall.

Edmund was gone.

The front door stood ajar.

Rose hesitated. The smell hit her first — acrid and thick, like urine and mold. She gagged but stepped inside. Her flashlight flicked across peeling walls, sagging plaster, and graffiti scrawled in looping neon across the hallway.

She took another cautious step.

Somewhere, something creaked.


—

Rose followed Edmund’s shadow through the derelict hallway and into a back bedroom. The air thickened with mold and rot. Rain leaked through fractured roof tiles, and the smell of damp clung to everything. Broken bottles littered the floor. In one corner stood an old, battered filing cabinet, rusted at the edges like a long-forgotten tomb.

She shivered.

What the hell was she doing?

Suddenly, Edmund vanished—swept downward, disappearing through a gap in the warped floorboards.

Rose froze.

Kneeling cautiously, she examined the spot where he’d gone. The boards were cracked and splintered, revealing a narrow gap beneath. Peering through, she caught a glimpse of a muddy newspaper—and what looked like files.

Bracing herself, she wedged her fingers into the gap and pulled. The wood resisted, groaned, then gave way with a violent crack that sent her tumbling backward.

Cursing, she straightened up and shoved her hand into the hole. Her fingers met damp cardboard and cool metal. She pulled out three old files and a small box, wrapped tightly in stained cloth.

Heart hammering, she shoved everything into her bag.

Then she heard it.

Muttering. A voice, low and ragged, drifting up from the downstairs living room.

Rose’s breath caught. She didn’t stop to listen.

She tiptoed down the hallway with practiced quiet, nerves thrumming. Avoided every loose floorboard. Slipped past the stairs. Slid out the door.

Once outside, she vaulted the broken garden wall and ran. Hard. Fast. Like it was sports day and someone had fired the starting pistol.

She didn’t look back.


—

She reached the car, breath ragged, and dove inside, slamming the door shut. Her hands trembled as she jammed the key into the ignition and started the engine.

Forget wine. Forget groceries. She drove like Nigel Mansell on speed all the way home.


—

Back at the farmhouse, her adrenaline hadn’t fully settled. She dumped the moldy brown files onto the kitchen table, then paused.

Wine. She desperately needed wine.

Of course, she hadn’t bought any. But Aunt Edith always kept a stash in the cellar.

She made a mental note to grab a bottle, then returned to the files and began to sort through them with trembling hands.

Old documents. Faded, water-stained, but legible. House deeds. Land registry files. All dated from the 1960s. One stamped with a council seal. Another bearing the name Leland.

Then she looked at the box.

It was small, metal, and locked tight. Rusted but intact.

That wasn’t going to stop her.